Unpacking The Bamako Initiative, - Sometime in 1987, at a gathering in Bamako, Mali under the auspices of Unicef and the World Health Organization, African Ministers of Health, browbeaten by IMF and other lending institutions into cutting government expenditure on social services, agreed to reduce the budgetary “burden” costs of provision of healthcare for their population by introducing user-fee payment for healthcare at all levels of service delivery. Known as the Bamako Initiative,